A CHAIN OF weight management clinics is to open four new offices around Ireland, saying Ireland’s obesity problem has reached “epidemic proportions”.

Motivation Weight Management (MWM) is to open four new clinics around the country – in Ennis, Castlebar, Wexford and Tuam – creating 20 jobs in the process. It already operates 25 clinics around the country.

In a statement the company said the clinics were being opened to respond to a growing societal weight problem – and cited the findings of its founder, Canadian Dr Maurice Larocque, who said that 70 per cent of overeating was ‘emotional’.

“When you treat obesity by means of a diet or exercise, you are merely treating the symptoms of the condition,” Larocque said. “Maintenance of weight is only achieved by dealing with the behaviour and attitude behind the problem.”

MWM says it uses a ‘behavioural modification programme’, which clients follow in an effort to recognise “their triggers and bad habits”, allowing them to eventually learn how to keep weight off on a more long-term basis.

The Ennis clinic has already opened for business, with the Castlebar clinic opening next week and the remaining two opening next month. The chain hopes to have 40 clinics open in Ireland by 2013.

The new clinics will bring the total MCM workforce in Ireland to 120.

The company claims that as many as 300,000 Irish children, and three in five adults, carry excess weight.

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